Session 14
= Date of Session: March 27, 2010 = Encounters * Deuteronomy * Dona * Ganix Oria, Power of Meat * Jimmy the Fish * Joktan, Scorn's-Regal * Naiara Game Notes XP: * Brendan: 13 * Jacqui: 18 * Jeffrey: 17 * Josh: 13 * Kelly: 30 * Xtina: 27 * Dynasty points: 19 Game Log Prodigal Powers The Conservator and Jonny return. They wedge a 500lb boulder in the hole from Dubai to the World Tree to keep the hole open. (Side note: Later, after Jimmy shows up, they give the Gourmand the ceramic fish. It's gone off, but he eats it anyway.) Jimmy; Radiant Emptiness The Gourmand gets a message that Jimmy the Fish is returning in a hurry. He calls the Familia to the Crawfish Basket. Jimmy is torn up, shot at, singed, &c. He got some heat from the Camorra as a result of his investigation and needs to lay low. He went to some of the big repositories looking for info on the Radiant Emptiness. He'd heard nothing but rumors about how it was a big concern for Lord Entropy. There's a prophecy that there's a future where an Imperator called the Radiant Emptiness takes Lord Entropy's place. The nature of the transition is unknown, but the belief is that when the change happens, the nature of the war itself will drastically change. The prophecy was made by the Noble of the Third Age. A few possibilities on who it might be. Aliyoth is suspected to be a candidate. The Gourmand asks if this might be tied to their mission. Jimmy thinks that it might. There were rumors about the Wildlord Adiv Hakinzad (the Imperator for Tears, Plassein (the quality of things like clay), Broken Things, and Bad Ideas) that he was in league with the Excrucians. (Remember that no one who was lost from that Familia was replaced.) Jimmy notes that the Camorra does have Ogres and Nimble Jacks at their disposal. After reviewing the situation, the Gourmand consults Aliyoth, who informs him that his instructions are unchanged. Two of the family gift Jimmy with a gift of Apathy to make people beyond 2 yards uninterested in him (which he can turn on/off), and a gift of Momentum. Other suspected Radiant Emptiness candidates: * Darklord Ganzaga, the Glowing King. Nuclear Energy, Explosions, Spiral Motion, the Void Immense, and the Obscure Separation. * Zhulong, Aaron's Serpent, the Illuminating Darkness. Ninefold Darkness, the Winds of the Change of Seasons, Brilliance, the Direction from Which Illumination is Borne, and Unquenchable Burning. * Churath, the Angel of Joyful Illumination. Rapture of the Deep, Secrecy, Expansion, Obstruction, and the Unfathomable Sundering. * Lightlord Sunyata, the Voidness of Mind. Insight, Contingent Existence, Atmosphere, Stillness, and the Quality of All Phenomena that is Meaningless. * Fallen Angel Azathoth, the Nuclear Chaos. Division, Fractals, Blindness, the Unbounded Waste, and the Pressure of Depth. * Geshem, a True God, the Altering Darkness to Come. Self-Transformation, the Moment of Awareness, Occlusion, Direful Changes, and the Black Winds of Perturbation. Jimmy shares the list of parties interested in the Council. (Pasted from earlier and edited.) * Haraphiel. They learn at some point that all of his powers are probably of the Dark. When asked if they were likely to betray the Familia, Jimmy asked if they knew the story of the Frog and the Scorpion. They are quite powerful, and his Familia had some conflict with Adiv Hakinzad. * Gregorance. * Serpent Zhulong (above). * Fallen Angel Azathoth (above). * Lightlord Sunyata (above). * True God Theratalier from another world. Mass Transit, Symbiosis, and the Perfection Attained Through Self-Awareness. Came to Earth because he had some issue with the way the war is going on here. He has expressed an interest in overthrowing Lord Entropy. * Illuminating Darkness (Zhulong), the Glowing King (Hinn), the Hungering Void. All names tangential to the concept of the Radiant Emptiness, but no one goes directly by that name. ** Ignore Hinn. He don't exist no more. Jimmy goes to a safehouse in the Chancel. Ganix's Request There's another security alert: something's moving at high speed in the Chancel, from the Southeast Asian side. It's Ganix Oria, the Power of Meat, riding on a meat-tree. The Gourmand gives him directions to come in. He wants to change his ways and get more involved in Noble society. He'd like to ask a favor. He's having difficulty with an Anchor of his. The Anchor has been partially suborned by an Excrucian shard. The enemy's name is Dona. She has red hair. The Anchor's name is Naiara. He doesn't know how the situation came about. There has been some unexpected behavior and unaccounted for time. The link with the Anchor has been erratic. He would like to keep this Anchor. He's not sure how to get this woman's hooks out of his Anchor. She used to have a good opinion of him, but she's become distant. She is evasive when he steps into her, and it's difficult to stay in her for long. He doesn't want to kill her. He's tried to talk to her, and she only talks of her new friend, like she has been brainwashed, like a cult or something. She apparently met Dona at a bar. Ganix kept her independently wealthy and kept her near him in Monaco. The Familia agrees to provide backup for him, in exchange for help invading Storm's Eye. They head off to Monaco as a group. La Salon Rose It is approaching sundown there. (This is not an indication of missed time.) They are taken by limo to La Salon Rose, which is a club catering to fairly mature tastes -- a sex club. They get a table and order some drinks. Time passes. Ganix tenses at some point. Naiara appears on stage. She smells of perfume, sex and money, high-end clothing. She has been traveling recently: Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, the Pyrenees. She does a very skilled... piece of performance art. Very confident. Not really paying attention to anyone in the room. Ganix is on a slow boil watching. Larkspur asks if this is normal behavior for her. Ganix says that it is not. A lovely, red-headed dominatrix shows up and puts a hand on Ganix's shoulder to restrain him from moving just as he's about to jump up. She reveals herself to be Dona, and explains that she's there to support Naiara. She wouldn't want her lovely performance to be interrupted after she's worked so hard on it. She mentions that her brother Bill knows us well, and that she's heard so much about us from him. She is obviously an Excrucian when looked at through the Sight. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Ganix jumps up and pins her arms behind her back. The Conservator, Larkspur, and Jonny prepare for battle. Dona notes that she has done nothing to them. She "simply wants to free her," which she notes is something that at least two of the Familia should want. Her argument is that Naiara was never given a choice in becoming an Anchor. Ganix Anchored her for her protection. Naiara's impression of being Anchored was mixed. She's apparently his sister and "still loves him", according to Dona. Dona's Excrucian lord is Belandon. The Gourmand asks Ganix what he wants to do, and he says that's obvious. Dona takes "her cue" and melts into thin air to reappear and "dance" with Naiara on stage. The Fight * Ganix throws the table at the stage. It's repelled, and the Gourmand eats it. * Janice makes the club not care about the weirdness, and Naiara and Dona continue to "dance" communicating with their eyes or tactile sense. * The Gourmand gets 1 Aspect for this: ** Jacqui: "Can I tell what they're saying? Is it about Meat?" ** Jeffrey: "Of course I'm fluent in the language of sexual pantomime." * The Gourmand asks Ganix whether they should terminate her. "That was my plan." * They feel a massive gathering of energy. When the Familia has felt miracles in past, they felt like a breeze, but this feels like an explosion. (Ganix used a Word of Command.) * Objects like chairs, glass, &c, start speeding towards the stage faster than the speed of light, including Ganix. He flies at the stage with an expression of purest rage on his face. * The Apathy miracle is no longer working. * Dona is getting chewed up and smiling. Naiara is screaming. * In the second sight, Ganix is made of meat products, wish a nimbus of red and black around him. His eyes look like the heart of a sun. * Dona begins to fire out a beam of light, like at the end of Fifth Element. She explodes into fire and acid. Everyone but Grace and Jonny takes a wound level. * The Gourmand tries to drink out all the acid and fire. The Conservator and Janice keep the building from collapsing and try to get people out. Jonny runs out with Naiara and Ganix. The Aftermath: Joktan Some people come stumbling out. One looks more composed. One is grim looking with shadowed eyes and an aura made of thorns. His eyes are like burning pits. (To the sight.) He tells the group with him (who seems mostly unharmed) to find their way home. It's Joktan. He wants the Familia to come willingly with him. They do. Larkspur asks Drusilla what she thinks of him. She gets the impression of a wind moving through dead branches in a forest in the dead of winter. And an expanse of unending sand, with dunes shifting, covering all tracks and traces at an endless noontime. And a leaf floating with in the Sargasso sea, not moving and getting more and more waterlogged, with no chance of a change in position. Ganix looks burned out, with a hollowness to his look like someone who has suffered through a serious illness. They all follow Joktan through an alley, until they go through a path made of red brick winding through a hedge maze where the hedges are made of locusts. There is awful ebbing and flowing din of locusts that is loud in a way that doesn't go through ears. It's the kind of sounds that makes one constrict and expand, "like doing nitrous in your bones." It's relentless. Occasionally, they see bodies and corpses pressing through the swarms, reaching and screaming. It smells clean, like summer and brick. It would actually be a lovely day, but there's an unmistakable undertone of chitin. The Gourmand doesn't smell the people being eaten, but he can smell "the shiny penny brightness of blood." Their hunger is almost a palpable force. As they near a building, there are more examples of punishments: * There is a woman encased in locusts up to her neck, with an infant dangling from her neck in front of her. * There is someone with the locusts crawling under their skin, forced to stay alive. Janice is very impressed. There is someone arguing about the unprecedented acts and iniquities of the person being discussed. There is an audience and various attendants in the courtroom. The person speaking is in one of the judge's position. There appears to be a young teenage boy on trial who is frightened & confused and the subject of the diatribe. Joktan tells Deuteronomy (the man expounding) to clear his docket for the day. So he then proclaims the guy guilty and to be executed immediately. He then has the bailiffs wash the blood down after bludgeoning the guy to death. Joktan takes the bench... Session ends. Category:Session log